Huawei P50 Pro hands-on review

EMUI 12 with Android 11 core

Huawei P50 Pro is advertised as running on EMUI 12 in Europe and Harmony OS 2.0 in China. Besides the bloatware, we cannot tell you the difference, but we can show you what our unit has at launch.

So, EMUI 12 is based on Android 11 and has no Google Services. Instead, the EMUI 12 relies on Huawei's Petal Search and Petal Maps, Huawei's own services as part of HMS Core, and the AppGallery app store.

EMUI 12 looks a lot like EMUI we've seen through the years with plenty of customization options, themes, widgets, and whatnot.

EMUI 12

Huawei also provides its own Health app, Wallet, Game Center, Files, Weather app, and Smart Remote for the IR blaster.

Music, Gallery and Video native apps are part of EMUI 12, too.

EMUI 12

If AppGallery is not enough for you, you can also get apps from third-party app stores such as APKPure.

Leica quad-camera

The Huawei P series, since the P10, has been famous for its Leica-powered cameras, and the P50 Pro seemingly follows in the same steps. The P10 and P20 introduced monochrome cameras, which were absent on the P30 and P40 series, but this camera is now making a return with the P50 Pro.

So, the Huawei P50 Pro features a 50MP main camera behind a 23mm f/1.8 OIS lens. PDAF and Laser AF assistance is available here. The camera saves 12.5MP photos, but 50MP and 50MP AI modes are available.

Second is the 13MP camera with a 13mm f/2.2 lens for ultrawide-angle photos. AF is available, too, so you can take closeup shots with it as well.

Third is the 40MP monochrome camera, meaning the sensor omits a Bayer color filter, which should allow light to reach the sensor more easily and with higher quality. Its field-of-view is the same as the main camera's. Besides allowing great high-contrast moody B&W shots, its input is also used to reduce the noise and enhance clarity when shooting with the other cameras as well.

Finally, the last rear camera is the 64MP zoom snapper. The sensor has a proper RGB Bayer filter instead of the widespread Quad-Bayer ones. It has a 90mm f/3.5 OIS periscopic lens for 3.5x optical zoom over the main camera. This camera takes 16MP pixel-binned photos, but it can also provide up to 10x lossless zoom by cropping from the 64MP sensor.

The selfie camera is quite interesting, too. It has a 13MP sensor behind an 18mm f/2.4 lens, and autofocus is available! You choose between three crop modes - wide-angle (18mm, no crop), 0.8x (21mm equiv.) and 1x (27mm equiv.).

The camera app has hardly changed since previous Huawei phones.

Camera app

And here are a bunch of samples from the cameras. We'd talk more about the quality in our full review that's coming in a week or so.

Main camera, 12.5MP

Ultrawide camera, 13MP

Macro with UW camera, 13MP

Zoom camera 3.5x, 16MP

Zoom camera 10x, 16MP

Monochrome camera, 12.5MP

Selfies UW • 0.8x • 1x • Portrait

And here are some low-light photos.

Main • UW • 3.5x • 10x

Night mode Main • NM UW • NM 3.5x • NM 10x

Main • UW • 3.5x • 10x

Night mode Main • NM UW • NM 3.5x • NM 10x

Monochrome photos

Early verdict

It's no secret that the Achilles' heel of the Huawei P50 Pro, or any recent Huawei phone, is the lack of Google services. Sure, Huawei's AppGallery push means you'd hardly be left without enough options for apps that offer navigation, mobile banking, document editing or games. But still, tech-savvy users may find it hard to commit to an expensive device that lacks Google's software and service suite - especially with the sort of choice that the competition offers at the same price. And we are not even going to touch upon the topic of the missing 5G. What's more important is that the P50 Pro arrives with a considerable delay after its Chinese launch, meaning it arrives at a time when the competition is already getting ready to launch its new family of products with next-gen chipsets.

Still, Huawei has shown it can survive without Google and without phones being as cutting edge as it used to be, and it seems to have found enough fans outside China to help them weather the tough times. Its great wearable lineup of smartwatches and wireless earbuds and tablets is of massive help, too, as having a strong ecosystem can drive phone sales as well.

We've just started our review process, but it seems that the Huawei P50 Pro is just like every other P flagship so far - well-executed, with an excellent screen, performance, battery, but most importantly - a multi-camera setup that offers a lot of creative freedom to creators. But would that be enough? We'd have to do some more prodding and testing to see if the P50 Pro will live up to the promise of being a terrific smartphone or it will turn out to be just an overpriced Instagram machine. Stay tuned for our full review!